


The Patronage of Strangers

by pqq



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Fluff, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Protectiveness, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 20:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13982769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pqq/pseuds/pqq
Summary: Molly’s nighshift at Moondrop's Frozen Yogurt gets a little boring sometimes. Then it doesn’t.





	The Patronage of Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Coffee shop AUs are out, dingy frozen yogurt stores are IN.
> 
> Title comes from Above the Bodega by Titus Adronicus

Molly tries his hardest to be thankful for his job at Moondrop’s Frozen Yogurt, despite the fact that he works the nightshift, even on Fridays. Sure, the little shop is dingy: the mural of smiling fruits is peeling into some haunting image and the fluorescent lights give him headaches, especially when loud children drip melting yogurt on the warped linoleum and cry when their parents limit their toppings, but it’s a _job_.   
It’s one of a few jobs of his, actually. It certainly isn’t his favorite one, but it is the one he considers to be keeping him afloat. Gustav is good people, and sometimes Molly wonders how he can afford to be paying him what he does. In another life, maybe, he would have slipped the extra cash back into the register, but money is tight right now-- tight enough to leave Molly with just enough for his bills and maybe some groceries, if he’s lucky-- and he hasn’t been in the mood for protesting the last few months.   
When he got the job, he was honestly surprised. At the interview, he’d gone full blast, as he always does, dyeing his hair fresh for the occasion and flashing his split tongue as many times as he could when explaining his work history. Gustav had just listened intently, though, seemingly unconcerned with Molly’s outward appearance, and he’d known his little charade had succeeded in determining if this was an establishment worth working at.   
So he’s grateful for this place. Or he tries to be. Unsurprisingly, 11:30 on a Tuesday night leaves Moondrop empty and somehow even sadder, and the job is both stunningly boring and stunningly lonely.  
\--   
He has Yasha though. When he gets there at six for his first night shift, the formidable pale woman was the one who had given him the keys to lock up that night, nodded curtly, and grabbed a single tasting cup of vanilla before escaping into the street in front of the shop. He quite liked her now, though, and sometimes she lingers with her little paper cup and smile awkwardly when he regaled her with tales of parties he’d been to and awful customers he’d had the night before. These days, the nights are getting colder, and sometimes it’s nice to have someone to hassle about staying warm enough on the walk to the bus stop-- someone to take care of. Molly would be the first to say that Yasha can take care of herself, but he hasn't had someone to care for is so long, and he’s glad she indulges him.   
\--   
It takes two weeks for Molly to actually get to work early, and when he does he meets Beau for the first time. He only knows her name because he offered to take the next customer while Yasha packed her things and he saw the name on her card. She’d scowled at the shift in employee, eyes following Yasha into the back, and well, Molly’s not one to pass up a chance to fuck with someone.

“Boo-ree-gurd? What a lovely name!” he exclaims with a sharp smile. She isn’t amused.   
“Beau is fine,” she replies, curt but blushing at the possibility that the dark haired woman in the back room might have heard his teasing.  
Ever since, he likes to show up early for his shift, just to cockblock the unpleasant woman with offers of helpful assistance and intense and judging eye contact.   
He gets there late on a Friday once, running from the bus stop to the little shop nestled just down the street, hoping once more for an opportunity to fuck with Beau, but stops in his tracks the second he can see through the scratched front window.   
Beau has her elbow on the counter and is smiling up at Yasha, who is blushing a bit and fumbling abit with the register. Neither speaks and the two women’s fingers are lingering against each other over the exchange of coins and bills.  
And well, this is a game changer. Maybe Molly can find it in his heart to tolerate the unpleasant customer. If she hurts Yasha though, there’ll be hell to pay. It takes him a while to realize that if someone hurt Beau, he’d raise hell too.   
\--   
When the odd pair became regulars, Molly was suspicious.   
It’s not often you see a grown man, especially not one so obviously down on their luck as the ginger man in the tattered coat, spending time with a teenage girl who isn’t a sibling or daughter and something nefarious _isn’t_ going down. There’s no real proof: the man never does anything uncomfortable aside from buying the small girl in the hoodie a fro yo every Friday night, so Molly tries to calm his protective instincts. He keeps his eyes open though.   
One day, though, the man had come in looking more tired and battered than usual, and had stared at the table in front of him, hands clasped and eyes unseeing. The young woman had reached out a bony hand to pat his own, and in the quiet of the shop, had heard her whisper. “It’s okay, tomorrow will be better.”   
As the man put his face in his ink-stained hands, Molly realized that maybe he might be the one who needed looking out for.   
He dropped a cup of plain tart yogurt with strawberries (a strong, neutral choice, in his opinion) on the table between the two.   
“I- I don’t have the money--” the man started with red rimmed eyes darting around to avoid Molly’s own.   
“On the house,” he said softly, winking at the young woman over her companion’s head. She smiled shyly, jagged teeth flashing in the fluorescent lights.   
Not much changes after that. The two are still a pair of quiet shapes that fill the shop each Friday night like clockwork, and Molly doesn’t start to buy for the two of them-- he doesn’t have the money for such a consistent act, and besides, he gets the sense that the man would start resisting at some point-- but he does notice that his only regulars scape together a bit more cash for tips.   
\--  
The very first time the young woman with the freckles and blue hair had come to Moondrop’s, she treated it like an adventure. She’d gasped at their meager selection of flavors and carefully selected her choice (the cake batter that carries a smell that lingers long after you wash your hands from changing the machines) before drowning the cup in sauces, mismatched fruit, and candy. Molly sees a lot of people get a lot of different combinations, but even he’s surprised by the machine’s cheerful declaration of $8.12 for the cup. He looks at her across the counter, trying to gauge whether or not this ball of energy will deflate at the number, but the woman happily hands a platinum card across to him without hesitation. A part of him deep down gets pissy at the reaction; what kind of person has the money to carelessly spend close to ten dollars on frozen yogurt?   
The impulse to resent her is quickly crushed by the excited way she looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to be following her, expresion like she’s a kid sneaking from the candy jar while she pokes out a pin on the machine, numbers clearly unfamiliar under her fingertips.   
It makes a lot more sense after that. He feels almost stupid for not realizing it before, but he just winks at her with a smile and watches as she forces her way uninvited into the booth with the odd duo of tattered regulars and starts a loud lilting conversation.   
He smiles even as he goes to wipe the topping counters in her wake, pleased to have a little noise in the shop.  
\--  
When the woman (Jester, as he learns when she brought him a sandwich from a shop on the other side of town, seemingly just for fun), doesn’t show up one Fridays, Molly starts to get a bit worried. The man in the dirty coat says nothing, but he can see him watching the door expectantly even when Molly knows for a fact that he’s less fond of the blue-haired sweet-tooth than his smaller companion.   
Despite the dread that follows Molly home after his shift on Fridays, he still doesn’t quite know how to look out for the girl who has quickly become his favorite customer. His answer comes in the form of the man with the drawling accent that must stick out in a city like this one. Fjord, as he introduces himself, is a friend of Jester’s, and from what Molly can figure out, he seems to be driving her to the shop on Fridays now.   
“She doesn’t know how to use public transport, and she definitely can’t drive” he’d informed Molly with an exasperated smile. “She got lost trying to get her when is snowed the other week.” She sticks her tongue out at the two of them.

Molly’s just glad she’s got someone else to look out for her. He can’t protect any of them when they aren’t here.   
\--   
It’s kind of funny how naturally they become a group, despite the odds. Beau starts to stay longer, lingering on her cup of oreo with fudge sauce while she flirts with Yasha. She meets the duo this way (Caleb and Nott, as he eventually learns months later), just sharing the space until Jester shows up late at night, dragging Fjord by the shirt sleeve, and brings Molly’s customers together, even trying to include the ever-quiet Yasha. It was nice enough to have regulars, but he thinks this is better. They often stay until closing, but Molly finds that the shop seems brighter, and he’s left smiling even when he locks up later than he intended to.

It’s nice, he thinks, to have a little light these days. 


End file.
